Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Nuclear fusion is the process of combining two nuclei. When two nuclei of elements with atomic numbers less than that of iron are fused, energy is released. The release of energy is due to a slight difference in mass between the reactants and the products of the fusion reaction and is governed by ΔE=Δmc2. The release of energy is also dependent upon the difference between the attractive strong nuclear force between the reactant nuclei and the repulsive electrostatic force between electron clouds of the reactant atoms.
The fusion reaction requiring the lowest plasma temperature occurs between deuterium (a hydrogen atom having a nucleus with one proton and one neutron) and tritium (a hydrogen atom having one proton and two neutrons). This reaction yields a helium-4 atom and a neutron.
One approach for achieving thermonuclear fusion is to energize a gas containing fusion reactants inside a reactor chamber. The energized gas becomes a plasma upon becoming ionized. To achieve conditions with sufficient temperatures and densities for fusion the plasma needs to be confined.